Electronic documents accessed using computers can include multiple parts. In some cases, access rights may be assigned not only to the entire electronic document but also to individual parts of the document. An access right defines any restrictions with respect to access (read or write) of the electronic document or a part of an electronic document. For example, the access right may specify that only certain categories of users or users having security levels greater than some threshold are allowed view the document or its part. As another example, an access right may specify that an electronic document or a part of the electronic document is not allowed to be modified.
Traditionally, when a user attempts to access an electronic document having parts associated with corresponding access rights, the device that receives the request may act just as a query modifier to cause fewer results to be returned (where the returned results exclude parts that the user does not have the right to access). However, such traditional mechanisms of handling access of documents with parts having respective access rights do not offer flexibility, and may produce results that are incomplete or unsatisfactory to users.